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Kelvin waves

Kelvin waves is the plural of Kelvin wave.

Meaning of Kelvin wave

Noun

Kelvin wave (plural Kelvin waves)

  1. A non-dispersive wave in the ocean or atmosphere that balances the Earth's Coriolis force against a topographic boundary such as a coastline, or a waveguide such as the equator.
    • Geophysicists have leaned on a mathematical explanation for equatorial Kelvin waves since the 1960s, but for some, that explanation wasn’t entirely satisfying.2023 July 18, Katie McCormick, “How Quantum Physics Describes Earth’s Weather Patterns”, in Quanta Magazine
  2. A long-scale perturbation mode of a vortex in superfluid dynamics.

Questions about Kelvin waves

What is Kelvin waves the plural of?
Kelvin waves is the plural of Kelvin wave.

Words near Kelvin waves in the dictionary

  1. Kelvin scales
  2. Kelvin View
  3. Kelvin wake pattern
  4. Kelvin wake patterns
  5. Kelvin wave
  6. Kelvin waves
  7. Kelvin-Joule effect
  8. Kelvin-Joule effects
  9. Kelvin-Stokes theorem
  10. Kelvin-Voigt material
  11. Kelvindale

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Kelvin waves (page history and authors); Kelvin wave (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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